My current hometown has a outlying village called Gotham (locals will tell you it's pronounced goat-ham but its all lies).

Gotham village does actually exist in the DCU. Direct from the wiki:

"The existence of Gotham, Nottinghamshire in the DC Universe was recently acknowledged in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #206 (and again in 52 #27), although the connection between two names within the DCU has not been fully explained. In a story titled 'Cityscape' in Batman Chronicles #6 it is revealed that Gotham was initially built for the purpose of housing the criminally insane "I even have a name for it. We could call it 'Gotham' after a village in England - where, according to common belief, all are bereft of their wits.""

My birth-town was founded by an anglo-saxon abbot called Sexwulf. I'll just leave that there for you to ponder.

When in the UK my friends and I went out of our way to visit (or at least drive through) Gotham. We were disappointed that the local church wasn't named "Holy something-or-other" that we could put "Batman" after.

I would imagine that road sign above have been 'borrowed' quite a few times....Nottingham itself is also is home to the building used for exterior shots of Wayne Manor in The Dark Knight Rises.

To come full circle to Greasmonkey's post above, one of Nottingham's notable figures of the past was a Victorian bare knuckle boxer turned preacher William 'Bendigo' Thompson, who does indeed have a town named after him in Victoria, Australia.

Bendigo was a bit of a character, during his fights "He would make up rhymes about his opponents during the fights, and distract them with insults and tall tales of their wives and mothers while pulling funny faces at them" and after turning to drink he ended up preaching sermons to crowds, which could end up being boisterous affairs:

"During one sermon, it all got a little too much for him, and while the rabble at the back were shouting and heckling, singing songs about his past fights, Thompson was said to have closed his bible, put his hands together, looked up and prayed; "Good Lord, Thou knowest that since I gave up my wicked ways I have devoted my life to Thy service, and have given Thee the whole of my time. But now, seeing what's going on in this room, I'll take with Thy kind permission just five minutes off for me sen" before vaulting the pulpit into the crowd and restoring order the prize fighting "